Battle Report: Mercenaries (Ossrum) vs Cygnar (Stryker2)

I had time again this week for a game. Because my friend was likely getting sick of Nemo1, I brought Stryker2, my other favorite caster at the moment. After the heavy beating I took last time against his list, I brought a more infantry-focused list. The Siege Crawler's new CID rules had just come out, and I knew he'd bring it. This meant Forge Guard again, and I know that they wreck jacks. So I brought infantry. Let's see how that worked out.

Mercenaries (Hammer Strike theme) - Operation Rhulic Swarm

General Ossrum
Hammerfall Siege Crawler
Grundback Gunner
Grundback Gunner
Grundback Gunner
Grundback Gunner
Grundback Blaster
Grundback Blaster
Grundback Blaster
Ogrun Bokur
Horgenhold Artillery Corps
Horgenhold Artillery Corps
Horgenhold Forge Guard (max)
Horgenhold Forge Guard (max)
Horgenhold Forge Guard (min)

Cygnar (Storm Division theme) - Stormswarm

Lord General Coleman Stryker
Squire
Ol' Rowdy
Lancer
Arlan Strangewayes
Stormblade Infantry
Stormblade Infantry Officer & Standard
Storm Gunner
Storm Gunner
Storm Gunner
Stormblade Infantry
Stormblade Infantry Officer & Standard
Storm Gunner
Stormlances (max)
Savio Montero Acosta
Stormblade Captain
Journeyman Warcaster
Firefly


The scenario was The Pit 2016, with two flags and a central zone. The photos here are small, but you can click to embiggen.

Deployment

Cygnar deploys with stormlances far left and stormblades aiming to avoid the ponds and get through the dual gaps. Rhuls deployed at 12" up opposed to Cygnar's 7", which compensated for their lower speed quite well. Cygnar wins the roll and decides to go first.

Cygnar Turn 1

Stormblades advance move and Cygnar runs up, the stormblades taking refuge behind the central house. Stormlances move up towards the forest.

Rhulic Turn 1

Ossrum feats early and the dwarves rush forward, spray bunnies shooting a handful of stormblades to death. The four gun bunnies shoot at stormlances, injure a few, and kill one. The rest of the Rhulic army sits happy under the feat's extra armor.

Cygnar Turn 2

As the Cygnar player, I perhaps should have had Stryker feat now, but chose not to because of the ARM21 gun bunnies guarding all the hammer dwarves. If I just wait one round, I said, the entire army will be much easier to damage. My goal this turn was to jam up the front lines, engage the bunnies, and prevent any dwarves from getting through. Both units of storm blades use Iron Zeal, and Stryker puts up deceleration. Additionally, Stryker arcs a lightning AoE into a bunny at the left to prevent dwarves from easily getting through.

In the end, the turn was a bit of a waste. I put some damage on gun bunnies, but didn't kill a single model. I'll be analyzing this turn for what I did wrong, because it was certainly here, but I fear that even had I feated I'd have barely taken out any gun bunnies.

Rhulic Turn 2

Ossrum casts unstoppable force and his bunnies start pushing. The goal is to push and get the bunnies disengaged, but due to tight lines, the front line of stormblades doesn't get pushed back far enough to allow that. This does allow space for the dwarves to charge through the bunnies and wreck some stormblades, which they do. The Firefly also goes down to a mortar and the Siege Crawler. Forge guard charges and take out two more stormlances.

(Rhuls 0, Cygnar 0)

Cygnar Turn 3

This has got to be Stryker's feat turn. It felt like too late - I'd lost way too many models for the feat to have maximum impact. The feat lets Cygnar take out a butt ton of forge guard and all the bunnies. But as always with hammer dwarves, you kill most of them and the remainder turn out to be more than enough to get a job done.

Savio makes an end run around the siege crawler, killing the bokur during maintenance phase, then hitting the siege crawler and taking out a single dwarf behind it. His intent is to be a backline annoyance, contest the flag, and possibly threaten Ossrum. Pity that I didn't pay more attention to his facing.

Stryker arcs rebuke onto a big unit of forge guard and puts up a lightning AoE in front of the others to prevent them all from coming around the house and swarming him. He can likely outlast them all and probably kill them in melee. However, as it turns out, that would take longer than he's got in terms of scenario.

(Rhuls 0, Cygnar 0)

Rhulic Turn 3

The siege crawler begins angling for Stryker. Arlan takes six damage from a mortar shot and to both players' amazement remains alive. I never realized he has eight boxes. The rest of Cygnar's infantry is killed except for a single stormblade. A sneaky dwarf creeps around and stabs Savio in the back. Ossrum positions to start scoring.

(Rhuls 1, Cygnar 0)

Cygnar Turn 4

The writing's on the wall, but Stryker begins looking for assassination angles. He knows that if Ossrum weren't scoring, he could hang out back here at DEF18 ARM19 and murder dwarves as they came around the corner, but he doesn't have the luxury of time. A stormlance moves into the forest and kills a dwarf. The other stormlance runs far around and engages both artillery crews.

The journeyman runs to where she thinks she'll be safe from siege crawler fire, Arlan steps back, and the squire moves up to block. The two jacks murder some dwarves, and Stryker puts down a lightning AoE to dissuade infantry.

(Rhuls 2, Cygnar 0)

Rhulic Turn 4

Dwarves continue popping out of the siege crawler and engaging Stryker, who luckily has yet to be attacked. The siege crawler opens fire on the journeyman and takes her out. Ossrum goes up to 3 points, ensuring that this next turn is Cygnar's last.

(Rhuls 3, Cygnar 0)

Cygnar Turn 5

Whittling away at dwarves is no longer an option. If Cygnar doesn't end the game now, Cygnar loses. Stryker envisions a crazy assassination run which looks like it might barely work. Rowdy takes out the dwarves engaging Stryker. Then Stryker overloads. The roll is 16 for strength add, making his attack a massive POW31. The roll for damage is nearly as high, leaving him at a small handful of boxes - maybe 4 boxes?

Stryker charges the siege crawler, hitting it for upwards of 20 damage, then uses velocity to move forward around it, taking a free strike. The free strike would have killed him and forces Stryker to use a focus to burn damage, so he reaches Ossrum with two focus and one box. He uses one focus to buy an attack, and finds out that Ossrum has bullet dodger, forcing Stryker to use his last focus to boost the hit roll. The POW31 attack barely hits, and leaves Ossrum at 3 boxes. Stryker is done.

We stop play here with the knowledge that the Rhulic army scores its fourth point at the end of the Cygnar turn, and then can stand still and score its fifth point on its own turn.

(Mercenaries win!)

(Mercs 5, Cygnar 0)

Final Thoughts

• Obviously, scenario. I could have put Stryker on my flag earlier, but if I had, I'd certainly have been taking chip damage from mortar fire, which would have meant that any assassination run would have killed me.
• Perhaps I should have focused my strength on the right. If I'd had both units of stormblades there, they'd have been very cramped, but I could have spread out further to the right and gone for the siege crawler with the arcane shielded stormblades at the front and headed for that enemy flag. The lances at the left could have taken a few shots and headed around the forest to flank.
• I keep thinking of ways Stryker could have gotten more focus for the assassination. He'd have needed two more focus to close the deal, which is iffy at best. If I'd drawn one less from the squire and kept it around another turn, I could have gotten one more. But it would have been hard to predict that I'd need that. Keeping the journeyman alive to preserve arcane shield on Stryker might have helped, but with the rolls being what they were, an additional three armor wouldn't have prevented Stryker needing to burn a focus on the approach to stay alive after the siege crawler's bash. It's possible that I could have stayed that half-inch away from the siege crawler and avoided that attack entirely, but it was midnight, we were tired, and I'd rather have lost than argued over whether that strike could be avoided.
• I need to keep Stryker in melee more. As long as there are no boostable attacks, he's relatively safe if he's B2B with Rowdy for a defense of 18. The forge guard would have needed 11s to hit, or 9s if Rowdy wasn't there. And once in melee, he's DEF20 against shooting.
• I barely used Ol'Rowdy at all. For all his special abilities, he felt almost like a waste in the list. Ditto Arlan, which I guess makes sense, as Arlan supports jacks and this is an infantry list.